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[Mega]

Vespa, isn't it possible that your projector is reporting its own internal color preset which it switches depending on the resolution being fed? Maybe it thinks 480p must be coming from a VGA (RGBHV) source and 720p is a TV with Component/YUV.. and it switches display color profiles on the fly. Try hooking up another source with scaling options and see if it does the same thing. Just a guess, I could be completely wrong.

I just got my first RGB Scart cables, and I must say I am impressed with how razor sharp everything looks. Even 480i looks damn clean.

But, the color saturation of RGB leaves more to be desired. I understand that this is the exact color separation and saturation intended to be output, but is there any way to increase the saturation on a PVM? OG Xbox looks particularly dull.

I tried messing around with the Gain and Bias values, but it seemed like that only affected contrast and brightness of the individual electron guns.

Gain affects saturation. You need to increase overall values for R, G and B. I don't mess with bias much unless the color hues are way off from where I know they should be in certain games.

If you can't up the numbers any further, then your monitor's phosphors are too worn out. Typically the blue wears out faster than green and red (red = longest lasting). In all the Sony's I tried with x000 or x0,000 hours of wear, the blue level wears out faster and needs to be several hundred units higher to produce an image that looks neutral enough. I read this is true of all CRTs. Additionally we're most sensitive to green and it needs to be dialed down a bit as the blue falters. This lines up with my own experience that tweaking green in anything with RGB values (CRT, a Photoshop pic) even just a little has a profound effect on perceived picture hue.

I have the BVM color calibrator but I can't get it to work properly. On my former 20G1U it calibrated to an overwhelming orange tint that looked very wrong. On my 20F1U, it won't start up the calibration process and throws out an error... possibly something deleted out of this BVM's firmware? It's a huge bummer because this tool is meant to be the correct way to get precise neutral colors. Eyeballing it is subject to many variables.

 

[Coda]

Taking home this weird Sharp LC-20VM2 LCD promotional display from work that may look amazing for retro stuff. It's got component and RGB VGA and I can see the pixels when it's off.

Anyone have any experience with these? Or does anyone think this thing is not worth it?

http://www.sharp-world.com/products/lcd/text/features.htm

 

[Kiddy Dong]

Gain affects saturation. You need to increase overall values for R, G and B. I don't mess with bias much unless the color hues are way off from where I know they should be in certain games.

If you can't up the numbers any further, then your monitor's phosphors are too worn out. Typically the blue wears out faster than green and red (red = longest lasting). In all the Sony's I tried with x000 or x0,000 hours of wear, the blue level wears out faster and needs to be several hundred units higher to produce an image that looks neutral enough. I read this is true of all CRTs. Additionally we're most sensitive to green and it needs to be dialed down a bit as the blue falters. This lines up with my own experience that tweaking green in anything with RGB values (CRT, a Photoshop pic) even just a little has a profound effect on perceived picture hue.

Thanks for the reply, I'll tinker a bit more tonight. If I can't find a happy medium I think I will just settle at D93 and get used to it. It's not COMPLETELY desaturated, just noticeably less than what I'm used to from YPbPr. As for the Xbox, I'm going to start looking for a 1.6 revision with the Xcalibur video encoder. The RGB out of the 1.0 (Conexant encoder) is mediocre at best.

It makes me wonder, though: is the image desaturation there because RGB carries the exact chroma information output by the console (and I'm just used to an oversaturated image from YPbPr)? Or is it because the CRT is actually aged and incapable of the full RGB quality?

 

[Madao]

So the colour shift issue that I had and that I saw on Madao's screens as well has gone, I've not used the vWii on the WiiU in a long time so don't know if this was a firmware fix or it just stopped, I know when I posted this at the time some people weren't getting this (I think Timu posted some shots with no colour shift issues)

(crops from Madao's screencaps)

Madao, if you're around do you want to see if it's gone for you?

a blast from the past.

i went and checked and... it's funny but i still have the same thing with my captures. my Wii U is up to date and i even have a newer capture card.

it's either the output resolution since i use 1080p always or nintendon't is doing something to these games.

 

[televator]

a blast from the past.

i went and checked and... it's funny but i still have the same thing with my captures. my Wii U is up to date and i even have a newer capture card.



it's either the output resolution since i use 1080p always or nintendon't is doing something to these games.

WiiU upscale applies a sharpening filter. Sharpness can create color shift.

 

[NormalFish]

WiiU upscale applies a sharpening filter. Sharpness can create color shift.

Not sure this would explain it, given it's gone for some people, though?

Might be I'm misinterpreting, though, and it's not actually gone for anyone.

 

[Madao]

WiiU upscale applies a sharpening filter. Sharpness can create color shift.

hmm, i tested with 480p and the artifacts were still there in TWW...

the plot thickens...

 

[Beer Monkey]

hmm, i tested with 480p and the artifacts were still there in TWW...

the plot thickens...

The WiiU applies processing to the vWii image even with component video and 480p/i output. There is no true 1:1 pixel output available on the Wii U for Wii mode.

Some people don't believe me, but they haven't viewed checkerboard test patterns on their vWii. I have.

 

[televator]

hmm, i tested with 480p and the artifacts were still there in TWW...

the plot thickens...

Are you using HDMI or component?

 

[Madao]

Are you using HDMI or component?

HDMI. my receiver can't handle 1080p over component so i use it with HDMI at all times.

The WiiU applies processing to the vWii image even with component video and 480p/i output. There is no true 1:1 pixel output available on the Wii U for Wii mode.

Some people don't believe me, but they haven't viewed checkerboard test patterns on their vWii. I have.

heh that's pretty weird for them to do. i wonder what they wanted to achieve with this bad processing (it doesn't do anything good from what we've seen)

i did use test patterns to calibrate the colors/brightness but i never tried different cables.

 

[televator]

HDMI. my receiver can't handle 1080p over component so i use it with HDMI at all times.

i suppose i could give it a go with component to see what i get but it'd be 720p max due to my setup.

That's really strange. I don't see a color shift on my Panasonic. It's possible that my set is correcting it. Vespa said the issue went away for him/her. Is the shift showing up on both your capture device and your TV?

 

[Madao]

That's really strange. I don't see a color shift on my Panasonic. It's possible that my set is correcting it. Vespa said the issue went away for him/her. Is the shift showing up on both your capture device and your TV?

it's visible on mine but i have to get very close to it.

 

[Balb]

Finally got around to ordering a SCART cable for my Saturn. Gaming doesn't get much better than playing NiGHTS on a BVM for me. Would post a pic but I don't know if my crappy camera would do it justice.

 

[Mega]

Thanks for the reply, I'll tinker a bit more tonight. If I can't find a happy medium I think I will just settle at D93 and get used to it. It's not COMPLETELY desaturated, just noticeably less than what I'm used to from YPbPr. As for the Xbox, I'm going to start looking for a 1.6 revision with the Xcalibur video encoder. The RGB out of the 1.0 (Conexant encoder) is mediocre at best.

It makes me wonder, though: is the image desaturation there because RGB carries the exact chroma information output by the console (and I'm just used to an oversaturated image from YPbPr)? Or is it because the CRT is actually aged and incapable of the full RGB quality?

To my limited understanding, the manual controls are easily dialed in and yeah, you can have it as bright, contrasty and saturated as you want without much thought. RGB adjustment is more nuanced... Series of values that each affect one another. Takes more effort to get it where you want. Age and wear does cause the phosphors to lose their potency over time. Blue goes first, followed by Green, then Red which holds out the longest. When I adjust my monitors, I always have Blue levels higher, otherwise the picture looks too red. Our eyes are apparently very sensitive to green, so that either needs to be toned down or adjust minimally (small adjustments cause big color shifts).

The more I delve into this, the less I realize I know. And that I don't know what I don't know. I can get a very pretty picture out of my mystery boxes but I often feel like I'm missing something huge or doing something very wrong in the process to get a good result. I got into my BVM's true maintenance menu and I stared into an unknown abyss.

At the very minimum I need to figure out if I am indeed conditioned to bluish (D93) consumer TVs and all my manual calibrations are on the blue side instead of around D65.

 

[televator]

it's visible on mine but i have to get very close to it.

I'm gonna do some testing tomorrow. See if I can replicate some visible chroma shift.

Finally got around to ordering a SCART cable for my Saturn. Gaming doesn't get much better than playing NiGHTS on a BVM for me. Would post a pic but I don't know if my crappy camera would do it justice.

Saturn may only be 15bit RGB, but it's a very clean beautiful signal.

 

[Beer Monkey]

I'm gonna do some testing tomorrow. See if I can replicate some visible chroma shift.

Saturn may only be 15bit RGB, but it's a very clean beautiful signal.

Mine wiggles a little bit from left to right on some lines, at some times.

I wonder if it needs re-capped. Or maybe it was always like this and I didn't notice in the 90s on a regular TV instead of a pro monitor.

 

[D.Lo]

The WiiU applies processing to the vWii image even with component video and 480p/i output. There is no true 1:1 pixel output available on the Wii U for Wii mode.

Some people don't believe me, but they haven't viewed checkerboard test patterns on their vWii. I have.

Have you tried running a Gamecube test pattern with Nintendon't at 1080p?

 

[Vespa]

it's visible on mine but i have to get very close to it.

I don't have Nintendon't installed on my WiiU, I had seen this only on vWii mode, I reckon you'd see it with Wii games, not just GC.

When I first noticed this I had tested it on both a LCD monitor and a DLP, they both showed the colour shift, I also tried different hdmi cables, no luck. Now my WiiU did get 'bricked' by a failed firmware update and was repaired by Nintendo a little less than a year ago, no idea if that has anything to do with it but I didn't immediately test vWii mode until recently, I assumed it was still exhibiting the same issue.

I've just tested it at 480p and 1080p, no colour shifting, it was super noticeable on the projector but this time around it's not there. I'm using the original Nintendo hdmi cable.

I thought perhaps it was Nintendo doing something weird to PAL machines but I believe you have a NTSC machine which rules that out.

 

[Hesh]

I inherited my dad's Sony Trinitron when he moved across the country and I've kept it these past 4 and a half years since I figured it was invaluable for all of the retro game systems I have, including recent stuff like my PS2, Xbox and Gamecube. I've been getting pressured by my family to get rid of it when I move later this year since the thing weighs a few hundred pounds and is a pain in the ass to move around, but I'm thinking I should hold onto it since they don't make them anymore and it could have collector's value some day. Does anyone know an easy way to figure out the model without having to check the back panel? Mine is a grey model with the vertical bar speakers on the side, SRS audio symbol at the bottom left of the front, with the little push hatch on the front with an additional S-Video input. I haven't measured it but I want to say that it's around 40".

 

[Peltz]

I inherited my dad's Sony Trinitron when he moved across the country and I've kept it these past 4 and a half years since I figured it was invaluable for all of the retro game systems I have, including recent stuff like my PS2, Xbox and Gamecube. I've been getting pressured by my family to get rid of it when I move later this year since the thing weighs a few hundred pounds and is a pain in the ass to move around, but I'm thinking I should hold onto it since they don't make them anymore and it could have collector's value some day. Does anyone know an easy way to figure out the model without having to check the back panel? Mine is a grey model with the vertical bar speakers on the side, SRS audio symbol at the bottom left of the front, with the little push hatch on the front with an additional S-Video input. I haven't measured it but I want to say that it's around 40".

Pics?

 

[Khaz]

Can't you use a small mirror to look behind it, or use your phone to take some blind pics of the back?

 

[Beer Monkey]

Have you tried running a Gamecube test pattern with Nintendon't at 1080p?

Just tried, the 240p test suite locks up on a black screen when I try to launch it on my Wii U from Nintendon't.

Funny. Everything else I've ever tried works, including Mario Kart Arcade GP.

 

[televator]

Just tried, the 240p test suite locks up on a black screen when I try to launch it on my Wii U from Nintendon't.

Funny. Everything else I've ever tried works, including Mario Kart Arcade GP.

I've downloaded the test suit in order to see for myself if my WiiU produces a shift. I'm just waiting on my batteries to charge for my Wiimote so I can get into the vWii.

 

[nateify]

Over 720p component and 1080p HDMI I noticed a color shift in certain test patterns of the Wii 240p Test Suite, in the vWii of the NTSC Wii U. I couldn't discern it in a couple Wii games I tested, however.

Edit:
The color shift is noticeable where blue meets red and magenta meets green. The 240p test suite loaded into Dolphin shows clear cut lines at both 240p and 480 modes, as expected. It's clearly discernable on the TV even at 1080p, so it's not just capture artifacting.

 

[Beer Monkey]

The color shift is noticeable where blue meets red and magenta meets green. The 240p test suite loaded into Dolphin shows clear cut lines at both 240p and 480 modes, as expected. It's clearly discernable on the TV even at 1080p, so it's not just capture artifacting.

Go into the Wii U control panel and change the overscan adjustment. There's like 9 or 10 notches. You'll notice the artifacting move around a bit as the scaling changes, but it will never be eliminated. There are even artifacts at 480p/i on a CRT. The Wii U is not a substitute for the Wii if you want 1:1.

 

[televator]

I have a problem with the test suit. It recognizes WiiU as component even though it's on HDMI. Also the video settings don't seem to have a 480p mode. The default mode is on 240p and other options are just scaled 240p.

It seems to me that the the test suite has not been optimized for WiiU.

 

[Beer Monkey]

I have a problem with the test suit. It recognizes WiiU as component even though it's on HDMI. Also the video settings don't seem to have a 480p mode. The default mode is on 240p and other options are just scaled 240p.

It seems to me that the the test suite has not been optimized for WiiU.

I don't think the vWii has the ability to recognize anything that happens on the Wii U side including the buffering and processing of video by the Wii U. There's no such thing as an HDMI Wii so that's a foreign "idea" to the vWii - likely something that it does not have visibility of (the actual physical video output).

 

[televator]

I don't think the vWii has the ability to recognize anything that happens on the Wii U side including the buffering and processing of video by the Wii U. There's no such thing as an HDMI Wii so that's a foreign "idea" to the vWii - likely something that it does not have visibility of (the actual physical video output).

I should say it wasn't optimized for vWii and/or 480p. I don't think vWii does 240p -- especially over HDMI. I'd like there to be native 480p patterns.

Oh well, I'm not seeing filtering or chroma shift in 480p games.

 

[Madao]

Just tried, the 240p test suite locks up on a black screen when I try to launch it on my Wii U from Nintendon't.

Funny. Everything else I've ever tried works, including Mario Kart Arcade GP.

one thing i noticed is that that happens with the newer remotes. it works fine with the older non motion+ remotes.

i got lucky because i still have some of those around.

i think i'll give the test suite a go to see the color shifts. i didn't really look for that when i calibrated my TV the last time i used it.

 

[Beer Monkey]

Oh well, I'm not seeing filtering or chroma shift in 480p games.

I can spot it in VC platformers when standing stationary on the edges of text and objects.

one thing i noticed is that that happens with the newer remotes. it works fine with the older non motion+ remotes.

i got lucky because i still have some of those around.

i think i'll give the test suite a go to see the color shifts. i didn't really look for that when i calibrated my TV the last time i used it.

I was TOTALLY using the only M+ remote I own.

 

[televator]

I can spot it in VC platformers when standing stationary on the edges of text and objects.

Any disc based games?

 

[NormalFish]

so both Retro_console_accessories and retrogamingcables.co.uk appear to be out of NTSC SNES/SFC cables. Looking to get one for my birthday at the start of next month. Anyone have a suggestion for an alternative site, or in-the-know about when they'll be back in stock?

 

[Beer Monkey]

so both Retro_console_accessories and retrogamingcables.co.uk appear to be out of NTSC SNES/SFC cables. Looking to get one for my birthday at the start of next month. Anyone have a suggestion for an alternative site, or in-the-know about when they'll be back in stock?

Most Mondays at 6am is when she lists stock on eBay. (the former).

 

[televator]

]http://imgur.com/kXOuatP

[]http://imgur.com/0psK4bH

[]http://imgur.com/2s8NX1S

cant embed images on mobile for some reason. I think my iPad camera is better than my actual camera. Snapped some off screen pics of WiiU Nintendont @ 480p.

 

[Shadow Hog]

FTFY

 

[D.Lo]

How do you get Mario Kart Arcade running on a Wii U?

I thought you had to replace the GameCube loader or something and it wasn't Wii U compatible?

 

[Beer Monkey]

How do you get Mario Kart Arcade running on a Wii U?

I thought you had to replace the GameCube loader or something and it wasn't Wii U compatible?

I ran it today on Nintendon't on my Wii U, just softmod the vWii first. Google for guides.

 

[televator]

FTFY

Thanks!

 

[D.Lo]

Yes I've had vWii from the beginning, but MKAGP was not supported on Wii U, because it required a cMIOS.

So sounds like Nintendon't has added support for it a some point. I'll take a look.

 

[Beer Monkey]

Yes I've had vWii from the beginning, but MKAGP was not supported on Wii U, because it required a cMIOS.

So sounds like Nintendon't has added support for it a some point. I'll take a look.

I didn't install anything special FYI.

 

[televator]

480p, of course. The 240p test suite has the ability to output 480p and 480i, even 576i.

Here's a snap.



Scaling artifacts on a checkerboard pattern. The CRT display does not scale. The Wii U is doing it. FYI you can easily install the RGB test suite in a softmodded vWii.

Coming back to this. That's a whole world of difference from what I'm seeing. This pattern resolves perfectly from my WiiU. Event though the actual pattern is in 240p. It's quite drastic.

Could it be different models of WiiU? Firmware wouldn't make a difference. Firmware updates for WiiU don't touch anything on the vWii. I have a 32GB, black WiiU. There has been at least one hardware revision iirc.

 

[Beer Monkey]

Coming back to this. That's a whole world of difference from what I'm seeing. This pattern resolves perfectly from my WiiU. Event though the actual pattern is in 240p. It's quite drastic.

Could it be different models of WiiU? Firmware wouldn't make a difference. Firmware updates for WiiU don't touch anything on the vWii. I have a 32GB, black WiiU. There has been at least one hardware revision iirc.

I can maybe, maybe mess with this some more this weekend. But I've pretty much written it off due to combined latency with my amazing Kuro TV. Great display device, but lags. So I'm playing Wii and GameCube on a CRT there days. So priorities have changed.

I like the community too though so may try to do more testing when I can.

The Kuro is always programmed for 1:1 on 1080p sources, FYI.

 

[missile]

That's true, I knew there was a tiny amount of delay (iirc the image is shifted a couple of pixels to the right), ...

Only if the delay for the luma component isn't long enough to wait for I and Q.

... but I don't really know why. I assumed it was because of the added electronics, like logic gates are not instant instant. ...

Inductors and capacitors pose some sort of (electric) inertia.

... Bandwidth, rise time etc are way out of my amateur league lol.

You can read everything off from charging a capacitor with a step-function.

Edit:
I may write a quick run-down how to derive everything using a lowpass filter.

... I know the Master System light gun in RGB hits slightly to the left of the cannon, I thought it would be to compensate for such a delay, with the gun being calibrated for a Composite or RF output. But I don't have an RF or Composite Master System to prove it, and no one has been able to tell me whether or not there is also a shift on these video output.

Sounds plausible.

...

...

My guess:
A bandlimited chroma amplifier at the works having IIR filter characteristics.

 

[Vespa]

Coming back to this. That's a whole world of difference from what I'm seeing. This pattern resolves perfectly from my WiiU. Event though the actual pattern is in 240p. It's quite drastic.

Could it be different models of WiiU? Firmware wouldn't make a difference. Firmware updates for WiiU don't touch anything on the vWii. I have a 32GB, black WiiU. There has been at least one hardware revision iirc.

This made me check the console serial number, it didn't match the box so I thought they might have sent me another console but apparently after a repair they change the serial number sticker.

Here's what the Nintendo support letter said when I received my console from the firmware 'bricking':

Upon inspection of the console, the following fault was identified:

Frozen picture / time fault

This has now been rectified by replacing parts.

This is a PAL black 32gb model which was exhibiting the colour shift, unfortunately I can't say with certainty that I didn't test vWii after return since it was awhile ago.

 

[Vespa]

Over 720p component and 1080p HDMI I noticed a color shift in certain test patterns of the Wii 240p Test Suite, in the vWii of the NTSC Wii U. I couldn't discern it in a couple Wii games I tested, however.

Edit:
The color shift is noticeable where blue meets red and magenta meets green. The 240p test suite loaded into Dolphin shows clear cut lines at both 240p and 480 modes, as expected. It's clearly discernable on the TV even at 1080p, so it's not just capture artifacting.

This is exactly what I saw on Donkey Kong returns, the yellow bananas against a blue sky showed the issue best but now I no longer see it.

 

[NormalFish]

Most Mondays at 6am is when she lists stock on eBay. (the former).

I see. I'll be on the lookout, then

 

[Khaz]

Maybe you guys can help me there

My grandmother has an old LCD or Plasma, one of the first generation of TV, with a glass panel. Definitely not HD, it doesn't have HDMI though it does have VGA and DVI-D. And Scart.

Aerial TV recently went to full HD here, and we had to change the decoder. Previously she had a non-HD decoder plugged in through RGB-Scart and it was working fine. Now that all the channels are in HD, we bought a new decoder to put on her old TV. The decoder still has RGB-Scart, but the picture shows with terrible colours. As far as I can tell, the darkest area of a picture are shown as bright purple, or bright green, instead of black or very dark colour.

I strongly suspect that the decoder is faulty and doesn't send the proper RGB signal when the digital info is below a certain threshold (Limited/Full?). But can it be a fault in the TV? Like, maybe the TV is fine with Limited RGB but goes crazy with Full RGB, and the old decoder was Limited only?

 

[Vespa]

That purple and Green thing sounds similar to this issue people were having with the WiiU (after Nintendo changed something in the firmware), seems they had to update their TV's firmware. I know you're talking about a tv decoder, does the images in that thread seem similar?

Since that tv has a DVI-D you could use a hdmi>dvi-d adaptor? Any options in the tv decoder that let's you change colour space?

 

[Khaz]

It does look like it.

I thought of using DVI-D, but that would mean using an external sound amplifier, and that's out of the question. Having two remotes is difficult enough for her, I can't add another layer of complexity.

I'll be testing another decoder, one of mine that I know work on an SD CRT, that should tell us what is at fault. Access to the TV is difficult, we can't really take away the decoder for the afternoon to bring it back to the store, or do tests on the display itself, we need to time it right when she's eating and not watching something.

 

[Peltz]

It does look like it.

I thought of using DVI-D, but that would mean using an external sound amplifier, and that's out of the question. Having two remotes is difficult enough for her, I can't add another layer of complexity.

I'll be testing another decoder, one of mine that I know work on an SD CRT, that should tell us what is at fault. Access to the TV is difficult, we can't really take away the decoder for the afternoon to bring it back to the store, or do tests on the display itself, we need to time it right when she's eating and not watching something.

There's always the option of picking up an HD LCD on the cheap if you're willing to spend a few bucks. They make some dirt cheap panels these days, especially if you go the "off brand" route.